Category: Psychology

From the archives: Visiting Africa with Burp

Posted on by Suki

Continuing with the discoveries I made in my old files. This is another piece, from when our daughter was quite small, that reminded me of the charm of having an imaginative little one in the house. Yes, they still have imaginations, but they know the difference between truth and make-believe. If you have a little one who still believes passionately that her burpcloth is alive, savor it. Soon enough, it will be gone.

Perhaps I was pregnant with our second child, or she’d already arrived. I don’t remember that part. But I do remember reading an “expert” opinion about children’s imaginary friends. The expert in question supported the health of having imaginary friends, but then tossed off the opinion that children with older siblings “are seldom allowed this luxury.”

I remember reading this aloud to my husband and saying, “My child will be allowed this luxury!”

We have always enjoyed our children’s imaginations, and their imaginary friends have become part of the family. Our older son’s friend, which we spelled “Seiterint,” started out as a benign, tiny person that he carried around between his thumb and forefinger, and morphed into a Pan-like creature as likely to be naughty as good.

Our daughter’s friend started out as a burpcloth that she bonded with as a baby and became a family of “Burps,” who lived in Africa and did everything that our daughter so desperately desired to do but couldn’t yet manage.

Seiterint had an island and the island had an ecology that we learned in great detail. Burp had Burp’s own genderless set of pronouns: “Burp took Burpself to Africa in Burp’s plane.” And both of our children have eventually come to own their own airlines!

I know that all children are imaginative, but remembering that one expert’s opinion makes me question what we have done to nurture our children’s. Our daughter’s imagination is no less a part of our lives than our son’s, and we even attempt to write down some of the adorable things she says, even as our lives are so much busier with two children.

The first thing that I think we did right is that we never, ever contradicted an imaginary statement. We allowed our children to be “wrong” whenever it didn’t hurt them not to know the truth. Why should we tell a three-year-old that Africa isn’t next door? Why should we insist that our son play with “real” friends when his imaginary ones are helping him learn how to get along with others?

The next thing we did was to welcome our children’s imaginary friends like we’d welcome their real friends. When other children – or adults – seemed confused about a mention of the imaginary friend, we’d simply explain, “Oh, Seiterint is his imaginary friend.” He didn’t see that as a criticism (it wasn’t), and usually the children accepted the friend without question.

Once our daughter embarked on her own imaginary journey with her friend Burp, we made sure to keep the message clear and simple with our older son: We allowed him the luxury of having an imaginary friend, and he will do the same for his sister.

Once our son learned that this was a non-negotiable item in our family dynamic, he learned to enjoy her flights of fancy as well. As soon as he learned to spell in order to keep secrets from his sister, he started to spell his delight at cute things she had said. He was very solicitous of Burp and generally allowed Burp to take part in their imaginative play.

By this description it might seem that our children get along fabulously well and that we’re just plain lucky. Actually, they clash often and harshly. Their personalities are almost as opposite as personalities can be. But children do understand absolutes. Here in the land of plenty we have lots of picky children, but in places where people starve to death, children will pretty much eat anything that’s put in front of them. And in our house, many things are negotiable, and we see the whining and difficult behavior that children exhibit whenever there is a crack in the veneer.

But in the matter of imagination, we draw an absolute line. If food served in a pink bowl tastes more like strawberries than food served in a green bowl, that is truth. And if the imaginary friend wants to ride on the back of our daughter’s carseat and eat a chocolate donut at the grocery store, well, we’re just glad Burp is made of washable cotton.

From the archives: Nine pet parenting peeves

Posted on by Suki

I have been cleaning out the files on my computer and found this piece that I wrote when my daughter was in preschool…. she’s nine now. So it’s old news, but what’s amazing is how fresh it is. I still agree with all of it! I think I stopped writing because I’d called the piece “10 Pet Parenting Peeves” and just couldn’t find a 10th. So I publish it here in its original form.

1. Your child is in constant danger from strangers

A well-meaning friend of ours once expressed shock that we allowed our son to play alone in the front yard. “Aren’t you afraid of someone coming by and snatching him?” he asked. “Well…no!” we answered. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, about .01% of abductions “stereotypical” kidnappings, i.e. stranger abductions. That leaves us with the sad fact that if you want to take care of your children, you should be most suspicious of the people around you. Most children are kidnapped because of a messy divorce or by a mentally unstable relative or friend. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, “The most important thing you can do to prevent abduction is to maintain healthy communication with your children and spouse.” None of this means that you shouldn’t be aware of your children’s surroundings and prepare them to take care of themselves if they need to. But a sensible family can come up with sensible rules that allow your children some freedom. Resources: missingkids.com

2. Anti-bacterial soaps keep us healthy

Study after study proves the same two facts: First, antibacterial soaps do not clean any better than normal soaps. As long as you wash with appropriate soap for the appropriate length of time, you will be just as clean. And toys treated with antibacterial coatings? Pretty much useless against the daily onslaught of little critters in our environment. The second reason is much more important: antibacterial soaps are contributing to resistant bacteria. How big of a problem is this? Well, you’ve probably read lots of scary front-page articles about bird flu, but most doctors are much more concerned about the fact that they can no longer cure some of the most common infections with anything but the strongest antibiotics. According to the FDA, “About 70 percent of bacteria that cause infections in hospitals are resistant to at least one of the drugs most commonly used to treat infections.” Resources: fda.gov, niaid.nih.gov

3. SUVs and bigger cars in general are safer for your family

Again, the information is there if you want it. In fact, the New Yorker ran a fabulous—and scary—article on this topic not too long ago. Bigger, heavier cars are not necessarily safer. I found myself biting my tongue one day when I heard a friend tell another person that his wife got their car because it was “safe”—when I knew it to be rated one of the more unsafe vehicles on the road. SUVs are top-heavy, which gives them a tendency to turn over. Also, they are generally harder to control, and more likely to be involved in accidents because defensive driving is more difficult. If you want to protect your kids, get a good ol’ safe and boring minivan, or even a smaller car that handles well and performs well on crash tests. Resources: consumerreports.org, The New Yorker

4. Watching TV can be good for your child

Let’s be clear about this. TV is entertainment. When we watch entertainment, most of our brain is turned off. We are experiencing pleasure. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t experience pleasure, but like most pleasurable activities, it’s best to do it in moderation. People try to defend their children’s TV-watching by saying that they try to get their kids to watch educational TV, or that they are afraid their kids will be social outcasts, or that their kids whine and scream if they aren’t allowed to watch. But none of that changes the facts. First, babies should never, ever watch TV. Children under two who watch regular TV score lower on IQ tests for a reason—researchers have found that their brains pretty much cease development while the TV’s on! Older kids who watch TV can absorb a fair amount of knowledge, but not any more than a kid given a choice of good books. And they are much more likely to be exposed to things that cause them anxiety, aggression, and depression. I remember reading about a study that showed that American kids who watch lots of TV show traumatic stress similar to kids living in war zones. (Wish I could find a citation for that study…) You need to turn on the TV in your house the way you should put out food. Look at it and decide if you really want it to become part of your child’s body, because they are sucking it all in. Resources: limitv.org, aap.org (ps: We do watch some TV in our house!)

5. If a package says “healthy,” you should feed it to your child

Parents are the second-best suckers in a field of gullible consumers. (Kids are the best, that’s why advertisers spend so much money on them.) We are so happy to buy things because they are easy—you can just throw a package into the lunchbox and you’re done. But we really can’t believe what labels say. A good rule of thumb is this: If something is marketed toward kids, it’s probably not a good idea to feed it to your kids too often. There are some healthy foods that are marketed to kids, but they aren’t the norm. The food issue ties into the TV issue. Without ever watching a single program, our daughter recently found out about Dora. Now when she sees things in the store with Dora on them, she must have them, regardless of whether I think they are appropriate things for her to buy. The cross-marketing of entertainment and foods is a huge business, and even PBS is in the act. Resources: commercialfreechildhood.org, kidshealth.org

6. A school’s test scores are important, and the corollary argument, private schools are by definition better

Even the best-educated people I know are starting to be worried about their school’s test scores. The campaign to make us fear our schools and second-guess our teachers is having success at the most fundamental level: it has started affecting how we think and make our decisions. We did “due diligence” when we chose a school for our son. We visited all the public and private schools that were an option for us. What we saw and heard from the many parents and educators that we talked to is exactly what we expected: test scores say very little about whether a school is the right place for your child. Anyone who has studied the theory of standardized tests knows that there are two qualities that standardized tests test most accurately: the socio-economic status of a child’s parents, and the child’s natural ability to think in the way that the test rewards. English language learners, tactile learners, physically active children, children with ADHD, children from homes without books, and even children whose families don’t sit down for regular family meals all score lower on standardized tests. None of these attributes is anything your school has any control over. Private schools can weed out the low test scorers, and public schools suffer when the parents of higher test scorers are suckered by the myth that their schools can’t serve them. But what it comes down to is this: is your child happy at his school? Does she want to go there and learn? Do his teachers know him and care for him? Are you involved with the school so that you can help to fix problems when they start? If we all ignored test scores and paid more attention to the schools themselves, our kids would be better off. Resources: alfiekohn.org, rethinkingschools.org

7. The age when your child starts to read reflects future success

Continuing from our current obsession with high test scores, we find the associated obsession with trying to “make” our children read at an earlier and earlier age. No matter that in the most literate country in the world, Finland, kids don’t start reading instruction till second grade. No matter that any parent of a normally intelligent child will tell you the same story: he resisted and resisted and suddenly, as if by magic, he started to read. Reading skills are developmental and thus come at different ages. The mother of a child in my son’s first grade class was infuriated that her child hadn’t started reading by December. But by May, she was doing just fine. Any parent knows that kids never do things on our schedule! There are many wonderful things we can do to support a child’s readiness to read, including having books in our homes, reading books to our children, reading books in the presence of our children so that we model the behavior, pointing out the letters they know on signs, playing reading readiness games with our preschoolers, and more. But nothing good is going to come of this mania to have “the earliest reader on the block.” The kids who are ready to read will read, and the kids who aren’t are going to be stuck with the stigma of being a slow reader right from the start. Don’t parenting books always tell us to set up our kids for success? Forcing kindergarteners who aren’t ready to start reading is setting many of them up for failure.

8. Active children are “hyper-active” and need to be medicated

I have a very active preschooler. I have to admit that recently she found a bottle of sunscreen and sprayed it on each and every article of her clothing, removing each piece from her drawers and reveling in a job well done. She had a great time. I was furious, of course. But what makes me even madder is that even I, someone dead set against medicating kids for normal behaviors, pondered the ease of putting her on a drug that would “calm her down.” Our society is into easy fixes, and this easy fix, I’m sure, will turn out to have some serious complications down the road. The ease with which people are choosing to medicate their kids these days makes a mockery of the pain and difficulty faced by parents with kids who actually have real problems, who aren’t just extreme examples of normal kids. As mad as I got at my daughter for the sunscreen incident, I could only be thankful that she hadn’t done many of the worse things that I know a child with a serious disorder might do.

9. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls

By chance we got one of each of them. And by chance, I can assure you that I have learned that sex stereotypes may be true for many kids, but they aren’t true for all of them. Our little boy loved pink and sequins and anything beautiful. He hated getting dirty and gravitated toward the girls in his play. Our little girl is feisty and headstrong. She’s one of the toughest kids in her preschool (following in the steps of another girl of our son’s class who was also the toughest kid). When you say things like, “aren’t little girls so sweet?” and “boys just never stop running,” you create a world in which kids who don’t fit generalizations are misfits rather than part of the lovely continuum of humanity. Our son could grow up to be a sports announcer and our daughter Miss America, but we’re going to give them the chance to be something else. And you should too.

Daddy’s little genius

Posted on by Suki

There has been a small rash of these news stories recently: Kid gets extremely high score on IQ test, applies and gets into Mensa. Parents rush to news outlets to make sure Precious Petunia gets her 15 minutes of fame.

I shouldn’t be so mean, but it really makes me feel mean. These aren’t 15-year-old whiz kids who are looking for fame. This is a 4-year-old who likes Barbies and Legos, or a 3-year-old who likes to play with water and test tubes.

There are many aspects of these stories that I have no problem with. I have no problem with parents wanting to get their kids IQ-tested if they feel that they will get meaningful information from the test. A lot of parents choose to IQ test because aspects of their kids’ learning confuse them, or because they suspect that their kids have learning problems that are masked by their ability to compensate in other ways. Other parents get their kids IQ-tested because they don’t really believe that their kid has special learning needs, and they need the number to make it real to them. Other parents get their kids tested because they have to in order to get into programs or to get services.

I also have no problem with parents pursuing opportunities—like Mensa—for their kids. There is a fine line between helping exceptional kids thrive and pushing them to bolster the parents’ egos, but I try to assume the best about parents. Through experience, I’ve learned to give the parents the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. So I do that, and I assume that families choose to apply to Mensa because they think that there will be some genuine benefit to their kids.

However, a few aspects of these stories give me big problems: First of all, entering your preschooler into a media circus just because you like the flashing lights and fun music. No preschooler needs to be the subject of an article in national news. Preschoolers need a sandbox to play in. They need adults who talk to them seriously about things they care about. They need small and fuzzy things (living or not) to love. They need really excellent stories told to them by adults both orally and through books. They need the opportunity to follow their passions and they need to feel safe and cared for. But they do not need to be the focus of adults who do not know them, do not love them, and do not care about what the attention will mean to them as they grow older.

Secondly, families who push their preschoolers into the spotlight totally miss the point about what IQ means. I do not believe, as it is fashionable in some circles these days, that IQ is totally meaningless. Anyone who has spent time with people on different sides of the IQ spectrum know that it is something that makes people different. Saying that IQ is meaningless is like saying that no one notices that one person has dark brown skin and another has light pink skin. Noticing the difference is not the problem; the problem is what you do once you notice. If we agree that all human beings are important, all human beings have potential, and all human beings should have their potential nurtured, then I think we’re all on the right path and there’s nothing wrong with noticing differences and trying to understand them.

What’s important to understand is that IQ is descriptive, not predictive. When you say that someone has a 130 IQ, you are describing the sorts of gymnastics that their brain is able to do. When you say that they have a 160 IQ, you are describing a person able to do very different gymnastics. Gifted education experts point out that someone with an IQ of 130 (very, very smart) differs from someone who has an IQ of 160 (profoundly gifted) as much as someone with an IQ of 100 (average) differs from someone with an IQ of 70 (developmentally disabled). IQ is a handy construction that allows us to quantify the level of gymnastics a brain can do, and the level and quality of stimulation a brain needs and is capable of handling. As a descriptive number, IQ can be helpful in some ways for working with some kids.

IQ, however, is not a prediction. It is not a skill. It is not a gift. And it is definitely not, as all of these articles erroneously say, “genius.” One of the most famous, longterm experiments in IQ and its predictive qualities was done at Stanford by Lewis Terman. Terman wanted to know how having a high IQ affects people in the longterm. So he tested lots of people and accepted only those with the top IQs into his program. He followed these people for many years, and came to a (for him) surprising conclusion: IQ is predictive of nothing. IQ does not predict success, in money or fame. IQ does not predict happiness, marriage stability, health, or longevity. People with the highest IQs are completely normal in all other ways.

So what does this mean about our cute little geniuses? Obviously, it means that the word “genius” is misapplied when it refers simply to IQ. Einstein was a genius, and did have a high IQ. But he was a genius because of what he did. Many others with his IQ lived and died in obscurity. Other geniuses became geniuses without the benefit of a super-high IQ. People call them geniuses because of what they did with their lives.

As a parent, my heart goes out to these little people who are so abused by our press. To be called a “genius” by Huffington Post when you’re 3 is no gift. It’s a curse. How can a child ever live up to such a start in life? When she starts to develop into the flawed and incomplete person she will become, will she suffer from the fear that she’s actually a fraud? How mortified will she be when she finds out she doesn’t know everything, and never will?

Here’s my advice to parents who find out that their preschooler has a “genius” IQ and want to make sure that they help their child reach his or her potential*:

  • Make sure they have plenty of time to play in the sandbox.
  • Make them feel safe and loved.
  • Tell them stories and give them excellent books to read.
  • Listen to their ideas and take them seriously.
  • Speak to them like they are people, and allow them to have opinions and make mistakes.
  • Make sure they have fuzzy things (living or not) to love and cuddle.
  • Try to open up opportunities so they can explore their passions.
  • Love them, and make sure they know that you’ll love them no matter whether they become geniuses, billionaires, happy, productive people, or anything else.

I know, this would make a very boring news article that would never get picked up by the Huffington Post. Trust Avant Parenting to give you the advice that’s guaranteed not to make your kid rich or famous…unless they work hard to get there on their own, regardless of the number they drew out of the IQ box.

*By the way, this is my advice to any parent, no matter what the IQ score, if any!

Siblings

Posted on by Suki

Things have been pretty darn quiet around our house the last few days. Our son has been off on a school trip to Yosemite, so our daughter is living the life of an only child.

What a relief!

Don’t get me wrong: I adore both of my kids. I couldn’t imagine life without either of them. I’m glad I have them both.

But the truth is, the only extended period of time in which they got along really well was when she was a baby. And not just a baby but that tiny, sweet baby who didn’t yet know how to make her big brother cry. As soon as she figured that out, well, the merry-go-round started to turn.

This is not to say that they never get along. There are some activities they do really well together: They love to go down into the woods to their “fort” and hang out there… as long as my son doesn’t start criticizing his sister for how she pronounces a word. They like to play Minecraft together… as long as my daughter’s avatar doesn’t decide to beat up my son’s avatar with a pick-axe. They like to exchange weird e-mail… as long as my son doesn’t criticize her use of weird fonts and as long as my daughter doesn’t send him more and more e-mails that just contain the word “poopie” copied and pasted hundreds of times. They like to play games together… until one of them has to win.

So you see how it goes: They know each other’s buttons well. They push those buttons. Then they give the button-pusher the satisfaction of retaliation. And so the merry-go-round goes round.

Doggies
Gratuitous new puppy photo. The puppy and the big girl played so hard they just had to go to sleep!

I grew up in a large family, and in many ways my kids’ interactions are not that different from ones I remember from childhood. The big difference is that they have only each other. When one of my siblings got sick of another, we had others to play or fight with. Sometimes when we were feeling especially anti-social, we’d move down into the basement with the spiders!

But my kids can’t get away from each other. Even when my son was in school, they seemed intent on butting heads whenever possible.

The reality of it is that at some point, they will have to detach.

My son will learn that he will never, ever make his sister perfect. Or, conversely, he will realize that she is perfect (as much as any human is), so he should just stop trying to change her.

My daughter will learn that when you poke people they react. Her brother is not a stuffed animal, a dartboard, or a tree she can climb. She cannot rule the world through force of will alone.

Both kids will realize what most governments still can’t get a handle on: reacting to injustice with more injustice just ramps it up. The day one child makes the decision to rise above, not to react anymore to the petty hurts that the other inflicts throughout the day, is the day our house will become more peaceful.

That’s the theory, at least!

Of course, this is all talk. Action is much harder. So occasional, enforced vacations like this one are good for us all. My daughter can come to me for companionship, but I’m never going to be as good as the boy who goes into the forest to help her build a fort. My son can come to me seeking justice, but he’s never going to find me in his Mindcraft world, building a structure for him that says “I love you” in actions if not words. Their friends are there for them, of course, but friends come and go.

Siblings are irreplaceable. So get on that merry-go-round, kids, and play nice… or at least as nice as my siblings and I played, when we weren’t slamming each other’s fingers in the door.

Crippling self-doubt

Posted on by Suki

I had a conversation recently with someone whom I respect greatly. She’s a great person, a loving mom, and has a successful career. But partway through our conversation, I had a realization: She suffers from crippling self-doubt.

I didn’t mention it to her. Perhaps it’s just me projecting, but I’m somewhat of an expert on crippling self-doubt.

I used to mull over everything anyone said to me, trying to find the hidden insults and innuendo. I used to stop myself from doing things because I’d step outside of myself and think, Who would want *me*, of all people, to do *this*? I used to worry about what “people” would think.

I don’t know who those people are, but they ruled my life.

Some good things happened in my life:

I married someone who supports me. Even if it’s something he has no interest in himself, he will congratulate me and say I did a good job. Even when I start doing my “negative self-talk,” he’ll tell me I’m full of it. When I think something is no big deal, he’ll make a big deal of it. He points out my successes, when I see that I haven’t yet reached my end goal. He tells me he believes in me.

Another good thing that happened is that I ran out of time. Literally: I just simply don’t have enough time to do everything I need, want, and must do. So a few things had to go. Organized closets? Gone. Clean fingernails? Often not the case. Crippling self-doubt? Don’t have time for that today.

Finally, I became a mom, and the first time you hear your kid doing that negative self-talk thing that you do…. that’s when you realize how awful it is.

I guess I’d say I’m still ‘recovering’ from my crippling self-doubt habit. Tonight I am reading — for the first time ever — at In Celebration of the Muse, a huge Santa Cruz event that celebrates the feminine muse. Years ago, I wanted so desperately to read at the Muse, and was devastated that I wasn’t chosen. This year, I saw the call for entries and I popped something in e-mail. Frankly, when I received the invitation to read, I didn’t remember what I’d submitted! So in that way, I am ‘recovered.’

But as I was dressing, I got out my fabulous red dress, the one I bought second-hand one day when I was feeling fabulous, and I thought, Hm. Can I carry this off? Perhaps I should wear sober black.

But In Celebration of My Muse, and In Celebration of Overcoming Crippling Self-Doubt (for tonight, at least), I am typing this now all dressed up in my red dress.

OK, so I cut out the shoulder pads. I wasn’t feeling quite *that* fabulous.

I hope I will see my friend there, and I will give her a hug, and I will pass her some of my anti-CSD love.

From one busy mom to another: Just do it. When are you ever going to get the chance again, to do today what you want to? Tomorrow, you’ll be on to something else. Something else to love, fear, and conquer.

Ganbatte!

Now available